Listen: Firewall & Iceberg Podcast No. 107

As promised, it’s a bonus mid-week installment of The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast. In this slightly-shorter-than-normal installment, we talk Golden Globe nominations, SAG Award nominations, the recently completed first season of “Enlightened” and the upcoming third season of “The Life and Times of Tim.”

No sports. Or very little sports, at least.

Today’s breakdown:

Golden Globes/SAG Awards breakdown (00:00 – 33:30)

“Enlightened” (33:33 – 41:45)

“The Life and Times of Tim” (41:45 – 49:00)

As always, you can subscribe to The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast over at the iTunes Store, where you can also rate us and comment on us. [Or you can always follow our RSS Feed.]

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Alan, you don’t hate Julie Bowen. You hate Claire Dunphy. Actually who hate the men who write Claire Dunphy.

The reason why I say this is because Julie Bowen said that her character Claire is made up of an amalgamation of the Modern Family writer’s wives. She has said in an interview that she gets a pretty good idea of what they writers’ marriages are like because when they give her notes on her performance when Claire is yelling at Phil they tell her to be angrier when she questions them on this point they told her yes she would be angrier much angrier I (being anyone of the writers) know.

Therefore you do not hate Julie Bowen the actress or person who you have met a few times maybe at Press tour or through interviews. You hate the men who wrote Claire Dunphy to be such a hateable character.

This anger towards wives on in your commentary bothers me. I say this because combined with your comments about Claire Dunphy you expressed middling support for fans of Parenthood who wanted to punch Kristina Braverman. This is also because Kristina is definitely a tough person but she has a very specific vision for her life and family. To want to hit some one for that is problematic. This coupled with the professed hatred of Julie Bowen.

I find this really troubling. I hope this stops.

By: LN

12.16.2011 @ 10:04 AM

don’t bother with angry boys, it might actually make u angry. also tausif, i’d like to make clear that i dislike julie bowen as an actress, its possible to make claire dunphey likable and she obviously can’t. maybe thats what alan is saying?

By: Tausif Khan

12.18.2011 @ 1:38 AM

I am not basing this of this podcast alone. Alan made clear in a previous podcast that he dislikes Julie Bowen’s shrill performance and also talked about all the horrible things that Claire does. Having established that the writers are telling her to be shriller and angrier and the writers write the situations she is being put into Alan’s hatred is misplaced. Alan keeps on saying he hates Julie Bowen without pointing out what about Julie Bowen he hates as a person.

I watched her in Ed and I liked her a lot. I think she makes interviews very funny. I think she has a great mind for acting and comedy however the writers on Modern Family continue to want her to play a misogynistic version of their own wives so to me I dislike the writers for that (among other horrible conceptions they have about society and particularly what they think is funny).

So I really think Alan needs to stop saying that he hates Julie Bowen really needs to say he hates the male writers of Modern Family who put Claire into horrible situations and then tell Bowen to act unbearable. Its bad writing and bad character development and it is ridiculous.